Death… taxes… and tax day

They say there are only two things certain in life… death & taxes. How sad that at times… taxes make you wish for death – unless you are Lizzie or Colegate and you don’t have to pay. Oh, or my mom and John-E.

I don’t like any of you right now.

I got in my car to take my tax payments to the post office yesterday morning and the check engine light flashed at me brightly.

2 years young, a mere 35,000 miles and the light decides to come on!??!

Yesterday?!?!

The day before Tax Day?!?!

Stupid car.

Is there some sort of planetary alignment causing bad luck I didn’t see in the paper?

Broken or not, I was driving the trash heap to the post office.

I stood in line with the 15,000 or so other customers waiting to pay their taxes. I finally made my way to the front. The postal employee who was WAY too chipper this close to tax time. He looked down at my envelopes and smiled.

‘Had to pay this year huh? Aww. It’s OK darlin’, better luck next year.’

Thank you IRS for creating two addresses. One for payments and one for those lucky enough to get money back. Now everyone can see I had to PAY this year.

I thought about going ‘Postal’ on the Postal employee. How ironic would that have been? I can hear the newscasters now:

‘A middle aged woman had to be forcefully removed from the El Cajon post office today. Postal representatives are not sure what caused the outburst but the woman was heard screaming ‘car parts’, ‘taxes’, and ‘don’t call me DARLIN’’ strung together with profanity.’

And yes, with the type of day it was, the news WOULD have called me middle aged.

I didn’t have time to call the dealer so I checked the manual before driving home. The ‘Check Engine’ light has several meanings… all of which end with, ‘Do not drive at high speeds or up steep inclines while the check engine light is illuminated. Warning chimes and a flashing check engine light may alert you to pull off the road immediately.’

Since my car is still fully covered under its bumper to bumper warrantee, I took the steep Tavern grade at nearly 90.

Oh come on, you would have wanted to see what would have happened too.

The only ‘warning chimes or flashing lights’ I was likely to see were from the California Highway Patrol. The car took it like a champ. How disappointing.



Not to jinx anything, but we may be moving into our new place by May 10th.